The Piccirilli Studio: Public Sculpture For the Nation

History

American public sculpture began to flourish in the late 19th century.
The unveiling of the Farragut Memorial by Augustus
Saint-Gaudens
in New York City in 1881 signaled a new standard of artistry. The
City Beautiful movement
was taking hold in metropolitan areas throughout the country. The
World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, in 1893, was filled with
monumental
and architectural sculpture. Talented artists such as Augustus
Saint-Gaudens,
John Q.A. Ward and Daniel Chester French began to fill a growing
national demand
for beautiful public sculpture. In many instances the need was to
commemorate the Civil War but just as often it was a matter of civic
pride. This
mood was
especially prevalent in New York City where the Piccirillis were
about to begin their prolific careers as sculptors and stone carvers.
As Albert Ten
Eyck Gardner, former curator of American Sculpture at the
Metropolitan
Museum of Art, put it, “The arrival of the Piccirilli family in New
York
may well mark an epoch in the history of American art” (1).

Giuseppe Piccirilli settled in New York City in 1887 with his
wife, six sons, and a daughter. Giuseppe was a successful
sculptor
and stone carver in Massa Carrara, Tuscany. All six sons worked
in their father’s
studio and expressed keen interest and talent. Attilio, perhaps
the most gifted, studied sculpture for five years at the
Accademia
di San Luca
in Rome. This is where Giuseppe had received his training and
where, later, Attilio’s younger brothers would be sent to study.
Shortly
after arriving in Manhattan, Giuseppe and the older sons began
working
at Adler’s
Monument and Granite Works on East 57th Street. After initial
financial hardships, steady commissions from Samuel Adler enabled
the Piccirillis
to open their own studio on West 39th Street where they began
to prosper. In 1890, however, Mrs. Piccirilli became seriously
ill,
and the doctor
urged the family to move to the "country". They purchased
property
on 142nd Street in the Bronx and built their residence and two
large
studios.The South Bronx was hardly rural then but it was there
that
the Piccirillis were to become “America’s
first family of carver-sculptors” (2).

Just prior to establishing the
Bronx studio, the Piccirillis met Daniel Chester French, who
was emerging as a leading American sculptor.
French was so impressed with their artistry that over the next
thirty-five years all but two of his stone sculptures were
carved by the brothers(3).
Included in this immense volume of work was Abraham Lincoln (1922),
the colossal central figure of the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington,
D.C. The Piccirillis
used 28 blocks of Georgia marble, weighing 150 tons, to carve
the 19-foot statue from French’s seven-foot plaster model (4). Prior
to the Piccirilli studio, sculptors like French sent plaster
models to Italy to be carved in
stone. This was no longer necessary and, in effect, the
Piccirillis
helped establish New York City as a center for the production
of art.

This is where we first got interested in the
Piccirillis.
A friend had shown us a brief entry in McNamara's Old Bronx which
stated that the Lincoln Memorial was carved on 142nd Street in the
South Bronx
(5). Bill was fascinated but also puzzled because he grew up a few
blocks from the studio in the 1940’s and 50’s and never heard a
word about the Piccirillis. Also, sculpture had become a passion for
him in recent
years as a result of his own work in that medium at the Art
Student’s
League in New York City.

Our first step was to contact the Bronx County
Historical
Society which led us to a biography of Attilio (6). The book,
written
in 1944, discusses Attilio’s sculptures quite thoroughly,
but,
unfortunately, has very little information on the stone
carving
work. We visited 467 East 142nd Street and found the site
occupied
by a
Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall. We decided to dig deeper
into
the questions of what other art works were created at the
studio
and why so little was known of the Piccirillis. Our research
is still in progress, but we’ve summarized some of our
findings
below. Piccirilli works can be found all over the country
and
beyond, but,
for the most part, we’ve restricted our present discussion
to
sculptures in New York City. In addition to the Lincoln Memorial, the Piccirillis
executed
several other large scale projects for Daniel Chester French, including:

• the Four Continents (1907) at the entrance to the
United
States Custom House (now the Museum of the American Indian) in
Bowling
Green(7),

• all thirty statues and the pediment by eleven sculptors
(including
Attilio), supervised by French, on the façade of the Brooklyn
Museum (1909)(8)

• the colossal Manhattan and Brooklyn (1916),
originally
located at the Brooklyn entrance to the Manhattan Bridge,
relocated
to the entrance of the Brooklyn Museum in 1963 (9).

Over the decades, French spent many, many
hours at the studio and built a lasting affectionate friendship with
the family.
He was known to
be artistically and professionally generous and referred the
brothers
to numerous other sculptors
and commissions. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was helpful too. In a letter
to The Architect of the Capitol, Furio refers to a letter of
introduction
written
by “Mr. A. St. Gaudens” in
1891 (14).

The enormous success of the Piccirillis as stone carvers was due in
part
to the fact that the brothers were, themselves, talented sculptors.
Probably the two best known original sculptures were done by Attilio:
the Maine Monument (1913)
(15), at the southwest entrance to Central Park, near Columbus
Circle,
and the Firemen's Memorial (1913) (16) at Riverside Drive
and West
100th Street in New York City. The Maine Monument commemorates
the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898, and the
subsequent
Spanish-American War. The 60-foot monument consists of ten marble
figures
at the base
and a gilded bronze Columbia surrounded by three sea horses at the
top of a 40-foot
stone shaft.

The Maine Monument

William Randolph Hearst was instrumental in raising funds for the Maine
Monument(18).
(Some say he was instrumental in starting the Spanish-American War.) Another mother and child sculpture appears at the Firemen's Memorial and
a bronze version marks the
Piccirilli family plot in Woodlawn Cemetary in the Bronx (17). He used his newspaper, the New York Journal, to organize a
popular
subscription campaign which raised $100,000 from a vast number of
New
Yorkers including
many schoolchildren. The Maine Monument met with opposition
from rival
newspapers, Pulitzer's World and Adolph Ochs's New York
Times.
Originally the monument was to be located in Times Square, but a
bureaucratic "oversight" in
1902 prevented this. A public "comfort station" was built exactly where the monument was to be located. Some historians believe the oversight was
instigated
by The New York Times to avoid the embarrassment
of seeing a Hearst triumph in their backyard. Ultimately, the
monument
was unveiled in 1913 at Columbus Circle and enjoyed a widespread enthusiastic reception
despite negative
press from The
Times.

Another mother and child sculpture appears at the Firemen's Memorial.

A bronze version marks the Piccirilli family plot in Woodlawn Cemetary in the Bronx (17).

The brothers did two kinds of work at the studio; their own original
sculptures
and carvings (usually in marble) for other artists that didn't do
their
own carving. Traditional sculptors began a figure in clay typically
working
from a model. The finished clay was then used to make a plaster cast
which
then led to a bronze casting or a stone carving. The carving was
often
enlarged from the plaster cast.Throughout this discussion we try to
make
a clear distinction between original Piccirilli sculptures and
carvings
for other sculptors. Below we see Attilio working in clay from a
model
and the finished work.

Riverside Church is twenty-two blocks north of the Firemen's Memorial.
The brothers designed and/or carved over 600 separate sculptures for
the church. Ferruccio's son Bruno worked extensively with his uncles
on this project for three years.The church was opened in 1930.

The brothers also executed numerous smaller sculptures, often to
satisfy
their own artistic interests. Dixie Willson interviewed the brothers
at the studio for a magazine article in 1930 which refers to two
prizewinning
works
(19).

"It was odd," I said to Maso, "that you all made
up your minds to be sculptors." "there is no 'mind' to it," he
said. "Our souls are all the same one." Presently Attilio comes
in. "Furio! Getulio! Maso!" he calls as he pushes open the door.
"We
have won a prize. In the exhibition of the National Academy of
Design,
the gold medal is given to Furio." "This ragged man wins the
prize!" Orazio
shouts. And laughing, shouting, they all pummel the prizewinner.
But I could think only of what `Attilio had said. "We have
won a prize!" Not "Furio has won a prize;" not "Our
brother has won" --
but "We have won!" It is Furio's black marble Seal which
has won the prize. A sea lion just rising from the water. It
seemed to
me I had heard before of a National academy prize in connection
with the
name Piccirilli. "Didn't he win the same prize last year?" I
asked. "That was Orazio with his Black Eagle," Maso
explains.
Then in the midst of laughter, Getulio rises, lifts his thick
white cup.
It is a signal for silence. In that rambling old kitched suddenly
there
is no sound but the brazen clacking of a clock on the wall, and
from one
of the studios the echo of the steady beat of a hammer. "Furio,"
says
Getulio, "we - as brothers - are proud of you!" Nothing more.
Just one moment of silent, solemn tribute - every cup lifted.

Furio's Seal is in the American Wing of the Metropolitan
Museum
of Art, as is Attilio's Fragilina which is a beautiful
white
marble of an awkward adolescent girl emerging into graceful
womanhood.
Also in the American Wing are several important carvings by the
brothers.
Three are shown below.

Another
important "personal" work by Attilio is in Woodlawn Cemetery
and marks the grave
of his nephew, Nathan, who was killed in World War II. This
powerful
and moving sculpture called The Outcast is actually a copy
of the
original which was located in the churchyard of St. Mark's In The
Bowery. The original,
however, disappeared twenty years ago. Church officials think it
was destroyed in a fire.

After the Statue of Liberty the marble
lions that flank the entrance to the New York Public Library at 42nd
Street and Fifth Avenue, are probably the best known and best loved
public sculptures
in New York City. The Piccirillis carved the lions for sculptor
Edward
Clark Potter (20). They were installed in 1911. In many people's
minds
the lions have achieved the status of Mascots of New York City.

If the lions have become an icon of learning, the pediment of the New
York
Stock Exchange has become an icon of capitalism. The pediment was
sculpted
by John Q. A. Ward and Paul Wayland Bartlett and carved by Getulio
Piccirilli in 1904. The original marble figures had deteriorated so
badly
that
by 1936 they were replaced
by lead-coated copper replicas (21).

The Washington Arch in Greenwich Village underwent a complete
restoration
in 2003-4. A new lighting system was installed in December, 2004.
The
Piccirillis carved the two George Washington figures and the bas
relief
panels behind them (22). Alexander Stirling
Calder, father of the famous mobile sculptor, Alexander Calder, did Washington
as President and
Hermon Atkins MacNeil did Washington as Commander -in-Chief. The
brothers also
carved the four spandrels by Frederick MacMonnies and the eagle by
Philip Martiny. The arch was designed by Stanford White in 1895, but
the formal
dedication with the completed sculptures was delayed until 1918 by,
among other things, the murder of Stanford White by Harry Thaw in
1906.

In 1919, shortly after the carving of French's Lincoln was
completed,
W. M. Berger visited the studio. Writing in Scribner's Magazine
(23), he observed,

The family has been for nearly a generation famous in artistic
circles, not alone for the great ability shown in executing the
important work of other sculptors, but for the original work
accomplished by the different members of the family; for each is an
artist of exeptional ability...

He goes on to describe the studio:

Once within this busy hive, where the sculptors and their many
assistants work early and late, you leave behind for awhile the life of
the city and feel transported into an entirely foreign atmosphere; and
it is not a great stretch of the imagination to feel that this place
resembles, with its mountains of marble and granite, its antique busts
and plaster reproductions of Greek and Roman art, more the ancient
"bottega" where the old Italian masters of the Renaissance carved their
masterpieces, than anything which our modern city can offer; for the
mehods of work employed by the sculptors of today have changed but
little from that time...

One reason for the relative obscurity of the Piccirillis is that
when they
carved for other sculptors, their names never appeared on the work,
and they were seldom publicly acknowledged. In some cases the
sculptor
simply did
not want the public to know they didn't do their own carving.
(Ironically,
if a sculpture is cast in bronze, the foundry's name is almost
always
stamped on the piece.) This anonymity also made the research
difficult.
When trying
to determine whether or not they carved a particular piece it was
necessary
to examine the artist's papers where we sometimes found an answer.
The Inventory of American Sculpture compiled by the Smithsonian
Institution
and the Archives
of American Art have also been helpful in some cases. Unfortunately,
we've never been able to locate the studio's business records, and
to this day
there are still some sculptures we're not certain about.

The brothers' hospitality was legendary. Artists were always
welcome to
work at the studio on their own projects; Saint-Gaudens is said to
have lived there for weeks at a time. Indeed, for decades, the
studio
was a popular
informal gathering place for American sculptors.

Not only sculptors
found their way to 487 E. 142nd Street. According to Josef
Lombardo,
Attilio's biographer, President Theodore Roosevelt visited the
studio
(24). John
D.
Rockefeller consulted there on a number of occasions on the
subject
of Attilio's glass reliefs for Rockefeller Center (25). Enrico
Caruso
was a friend of the
brothers and frequently sang at the studio. Fiorello LaGuardia and
Attilio were close friends for decades. Attilio sculpted the
LaGuardia
Grave Memorial
in Woodlawn Cemetary after Mrs. LaGuardia's death, which followed
her one-year-old daughter's death by three months.

The following is an excerpt from Fiorello's preface to Attilio's
biography
(26):

Attilio Piccirilli reminds me of a well cultivated, perfect, sweet
California
orange. It is so typically American - only the seed came from Italy.
I say he is purely American because he is part of the artistic life
of our country.
He hasn't deviated one bit in the sixty years he has been here.
There
would be indeed a long list of names if all American artists who
have
enjoyed the
benefit of his friendship and help and sound artistic guidance were
to be mentioned in this book. There are so many things in his life
that enriched our city and country. I wish that they all could be
told
for the life
of
this unusual person is replete with interesting events in the growth
and development of art in his country

In 1936 Attilio completed what was then the largest glass sculpture
in the
world. It is installed over an entrance to a Rockefeller Center
building
on Fifth Avenue, opposite Saint Patrick's cathedral. Four years
later, The
Policemen's Memorial was unveiled. This was one of Attilio's
last major
works. His first major work in this country appears below. The McDonagh
Memorial is located in New Orleans and was completed in 1899.

Attilio was a co-founder and President of the Leonardo da Vinci Art
School,
which opened in 1923 on the Lower East Side (27). The sculptor,
Onorio
Ruotolo, was the other co-founder and Director. Fees were kept low
to attract working class students.Most classes were scheduled at
night.
The school closed in 1940, probably a victim of the Depression and
the outbreak of World War II. But in those 17
years thousands studied art and attended Saturday lectures. Four
"Leonardo" students
won the prestigious Prix de Rome which enabled the winner to study
sculpture in Rome for two years. Another student was a young man
destined
to become one of the 20th century's most famous abstract sculptors.
His name was Isamu Noguchi (28). The school received testimonials
from,
among others, Thomas Edison, Theodore Dreiser, Al Smith, Arturo
Toscanini, Calvin Coolidge, Sherwood
Anderson, Luigi Pirandello, Herbert Lehman, Thomas Dewey, Franklin
D. Roosevelt, Eleanora Duse, and Charles Dana Gibson (29).

A bronze bust of Leonardo, sculpted by Attilio, was installed above the
entrance to the art school. When the school closed (it was then
located
on E.16th Street) we believe Attilio gave the bust to his friend,
Angelo
Patri, who was principal of PS 45 in the Arthur Avenue neighborhood
of the Bronx. PS 45 is now MS 45, but the bust is still in the
library.
Nearby MS 45, in a small park on Arthur Avenue, is Attilio's
marble bust of
Christopher Columbus.

From time to time, Attilio would invite talented, interested students
to
his studio to give them an idea of how a professional sculptor
worked.
In the course of our research we had the good fortune of meeting one
of these students. In 1938 Jerry Capa was 13 years old when he was
invited to
the
studio on a Saturday afternoon. He still remembers vividly how
warmly
he was received by Attilio and his brothers. "They treated me with
great
respect - engaged me in conversation - answered all of my questions
- treated me as an equal" (30). He recalls, "The upstairs studios
were immense, flooded with light from the skylights - and packed
with
plaster casts of
work by Ward, Saint-Gaudens, French and others... there was a
powerful
elevator the size of a large room - which carried marble up and
finished
work down
to the street level..." Jerry was invited the following Saturday and
every Saturday thereafter until Attilio's death in 1945. Attilio
always
prepared a hot lunch and liked to critique Jerry's art work. Often
he simply reminisced.
Jerry remembers Attilio describing people "...who sat in my chair -
Teddy Roosevelt, Caruso singing Neopolitan love sons with moist eyes
- and so many others." Jerry also remembers that in those years, the
regular Sunday visitor was Mayor LaGuardia. Fiorello and Attilio
would
then go
to dinner, usually at Gracie Mansion. Fiorello's nickname for
Attilio
was Uncle Peach presumably due to the correct
pronounciation of
Piccirilli, which is close to Peach-ir-eel-i.

The art critic, John Russell, writing in The New York Times on December 8, 1935, said Augustus Saint-Gaudens had as much to do with
shaping the American spirit as Walt Whitman. "For it was he, as much as
Whitman, who distilled from the American Civil War a sense of grandeur
in human affairs. In a literal sense, he gave form, shape, and
resolution to feelings that without him would have been as confused as
they were widespread" (31). But he adds that even though his art is well
known, his authorship is not. We feel that the Piccirillis are in a
similar position. Their role in creating so many of the treasures of the
century deserves to be better known among Bronxites, among New Yorkers,
among Americans.

Not long after we began to assemble the story of the Piccirilli
Studio
in 1999, we felt strongly that the story be brought to the public.
Together with our wonderful colleague, Jerry Capa, and many other
talented
people,
we’ve been working on this in a variety of ways. Our first step was
to put the story, as we knew it in 1999, in writing which the Bronx
County Historical Society published in their Spring 1999 Journal issue.
This website article is based closely on the Journal article. Since
then, newspapers
(The
New York Times, The Daily News, The Bronx Times, Bronx Beat) and
television
stations (NY1, News 12 – The Bronx, RAI-Italian Television) have
done
stories on the studio. The National Italian-American Foundation
(NIAF)
published a cover story in their quarterly journal. With the
generous
help of the superb
photographer, John Orth, we accumulated a collection of about eighty
slides, contemporary and archival, of Piccirilli works. All of the
photos
in the website come from the same collection of slides. Two talented
students from Riverdale Country School, Derek Tarnow and Omri Shiv,
were extremely helpful in putting the original website together; the efforts of Tim Alborn and Pamela Burger enabled a move to the Lehman Arts and Humanities website in Fall 2010.
Most of
the archival photographs are from the collection of the Art
Commision
of New York.
We’ve
given numerous slide lectures – the first was in 1999 at Lehman
College (CUNY) at the invitation of Professor David Bady as part of
The City and The Humanities
Program. This lecture was videotaped by the Bronx County Historical
Society. The slides were also used to mount two photographic
exhibits – first
at the Belmont Branch of the New York Public Library with the
support
of the Enrico Fermi Cultural Committee and currently at the Mott
Haven
Branch nearby the site of the studio. Chief librarians Marisa Parish
and Ken
Giles
provided hospitality and enthusiasm. The street
where the studio was located was officially renamed “Piccirilli
Place” in
March, 2004. The Parks Department also helped us “spread the word”
by
allowing us to write portions of historic signs at Brook Park near
the studio site and at the
Maine Monument in Central Park at Columbus Circle. City Councilman
Jose Serrano and his staff have been invaluable in making a reality
of the Mott Haven Library exhibit and the
street renaming. Other projects that we’re currently working on
include a museum exhibition and a television documentary.

If you have questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you. The
best
way to contact us, Mary Shelley and Bill Carroll, is by e-mail. Our
address
is www.cousinpeach@optonline.net.